SADC ministers will start a two-day meeting in Cape Town on Thursday to discuss Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo and mull a regional response to the global economic downturn, the foreign ministry said.

The ministerial council will be hosted by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and attended by the economy, finance, foreign affairs, regional affairs and co-operation ministers from the bloc's 15 member states, ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said.

The finance ministers were to hold separate talks on Wednesday on how the Southern African Development Community could help Zimbabwe overcome an economic crisis characterised by world-record inflation and unemployment of more than 90 percent.

Mamoepa said the council of ministers would later in the week review the political situation in Zimbabwe as well as that in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Zimbabwe's fragile unity government is threatened by the detention of Roy Bennett, a top aide to new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and some 30 other activists and supporters of the former opposition leader.

In the DRC, former arch foe Rwanda has since January been helping Kinshasa's troops in an offensive against Hutu rebels in the volatile east of the country linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Kigali has dubbed the operation against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda a success and promised to start withdrawing from the DRC on Wednesday, but UN sources say the rebels are regrouping.